Twain's Ghost

Selfishness and Social Darwinism

Reconsidering the Foundations of Modern Capitalist Thinking

The following quote, one of Adam Smith’s most often cited, may suggest he was the laissez-faire ideologue his modern fans insist he was. Other quotes make it a bit more complex.

“It is not the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves not to their humanity but to their self-love.”

This quotation is used by right-wing libertarians, laissez-faire-ists, and others who wish to underpin the selfish and hyper-individualistic nature of the politics and policy that inevitably provides the skeleton of the (otherwise ruggedly independent!) flesh of the sort of capitalism they promote.

Other quotes that suggest Adam Smith was more complex a figure (all culled from his book, The Wealth of Nations):

“The sophistry of the merchants inspired by the spirit of monopoly has confounded the common sense of mankind.”

Recall the elite-enforced popularity of such notions as “What’s good for General Motors is good for everyone. Yeah, well Adam Smith, hero of the libertarian Right, so-called, disputed this.

‘...the clamor and the sophistry of the merchants and manufacturers easily persuade [the general population; the working class] that the private interest of a part ... of the society [that is, of the merchants and manufacturers] is the general interest of the whole.”

“The interests of ... those who live by wages is inseparably connected with the general interests of society. [B]ut the interests of those who live by profit [on stocks] has not the same connection with the general interest of society.”

He also commented on the selfishness and disloyalty of the “merchants and manufacturers”.

“Merchants and manufacturers are ... [more] ... commonly exercised ... about the interest of their own particular business, than about that of the society, their judgment, even when given the greatest candor (which it has not been upon every occasion), is much more to be depended upon with regard to the former of these two objects, than with regard to the latter.”

“A merchant, it has been properly said, is not necessarily the citizen of any particular country. It is in great measure indifferent to him from what place he carries on his trade; and a very trifling disgust will make him remove his capital, and together with all the industry which it supports, from one country to another.”

Smith also warns about the dumbing-down effects of modern industrial capitalism.

“In the progress of the division of labor ... the great body of the people [come] to be confined to a very few simple operations... [And they therefore become] as stupid and as ignorant as it is possible for a human creature to become... [In]n every improved and civilized society this is the state into which the laboring poor, that is, the greatest body of the people, must necessarily fall, unless government takes somes pains to prevent it.”

What’s that?? Adam Smith a socialist!! I see countless right-wing libertarians clamping their hands over their mouths right now.

In addition to these however, the butcher, brewer, baker quote offers more, I think, if it can be taken apart, analyzed and reinterpreted.

First of all humanity need not be seen as distinct from self-love nor self-love from the social concern implied in Smith’s use of “humanity.” There is humanity in self-love. Taking care of yourself and your loved ones suggests humanity. Having a larger social concern can also suggest self-love in the sense that you realize you are part of a larger community and social setting.

Second, if we are depending on the self-love of the butcher, the brewer and the baker for our well-being, we are in effect already depending on their humanity and social concern. If it were pure self-concern on their part, would they not simply arm themselves and take what they wanted, rather than working and offering a service or product to others? They offer a service or product to others with their own labor because their humanity keeps them from being totally selfish. Now this humanity demonstrated here, where does it end and who decides where it ends? Of course the individual decides where and how far they will go with their humanity (social concern). But who decides philosophically for all of us? Do we think about these things? Or do we have the thoughts of others? Do those who want to remove the humanity (social concern) out of our lives shape our society? Do they begin such shaping by misshaping our understanding of figures like Adam Smith?

Smith’s quote is often deployed at the center of right-wing corporate capitalist Social Darwinist beliefs.  Of course, given the close connection of the economy with the government, and this means more than corporate welfare, and includes the very legal and infrastructural backup of capitalism. In other words, capitalism will never be as ruggedly individualistic as some like to pretend as long as the government is providing law and force to back its social arrangements and to build its roads and seaports and so on. But even so there are intellectual reasons in addition to intuitive reasons for opposition to Social Darwinism. In addition to the work on this matter by the late Stephen Jay Gould as well as Richard C. Lewontin [.pdf], there is the book by 19th century Russian Anarchist Peter Kropotkin called Mutual Aid: A Factor in Evolution. The importance of these works is that they give the lie to the right-wing Social Darwinist junk science purporting to use evolution, biology and genetics to justify and explain social and economic inequality. Social Darwinism, as distinct from Darwinism, can be understood as an ideological notion, not a scientific theory. John Heweston, and English contemporary of Kropotkin and a colleague, summed up Kropotkin’s views, corroborated by his own studies, very nicely in his introduction to Kropotkin’s book:

Two aspects of animal life impressed me most during the journeys which I made in my youth in Eastern Siberia and Northern Manchuria. One of them was the extreme severity of the struggle for existence which most species of animals have to carry on against an inclement Nature; the enormous destruction of life which periodically results from natural agencies; and the consequent paucity of life over the vast territory which fell under my observation. And the other was, that even in those few spots where animal life teemed in abundance, I failed to find – although I was eagerly looking for it – that bitter struggle for the means of existence, among animals belonging to the same species, which was considered by most Darwinists (though not always by Darwin himself) as the dominant chararteristic of struggle for life, and the main factor of evolution.

{ ... }

...when my attention was drawn, later on, to the relations between Darwinism and Sociology, I could agree with none of the works and pamphlets that had been written upon this important subject. They all endeavored to prove that Man, owing to his higher intelligence and knowledge, may mitigate the harshness of the struggle for life between men, but they all recognized at the same time that the struggle for existence, of every animal against all congeners, and of every man against all other men, was ‘a law of Nature.’

{ ... }

On the contrary, a lecture ‘On the Law of Mutual Aid’, which was delivered at the Russian Congress of Naturalists, in January 1880, by the well known zoologist, Professor Karl Kessler, the then Dean of the St. Petersburg University, struck me as throwing new light on the whole subject. Kessler’s idea was, that besides the law of Mutual Struggle, there is in Nature the law of Mutual Aid, which for the success of the struggle for life, is far more important than the law of mutual contest. This suggestion – which was, in reality, nothing but a further development of the ideas expressed by Darwin himself in The Descent of Man – seemed so correct and of so great an importance, that since I became aquainted with it (in 1883) I began to collect materials for further developing the idea, which Kessler himself had only cursorily sketched.

{ ... }

We have heard so much lately of the ‘harsh, pitiless struggle for life’, which was said to be carried on by every animal against all other animals, every ‘savage’ against every other ‘savage’, and every civilized man against all his co-citiznes – and these assertions have so much become an article of faith – that is was necessary, first of all, to oppose them a wide series of facts showing animal and human life under a quite different aspect [i.e., surviving and succeeding by way of mutual assistance].

It seems to me that Social Darwinism is just old authoritarian religion and social philosophy dressed-up in scientific costume. Sorta like ‘The Bell Curve’ BS of the last decade. Sorta like creationism and intelligent design ideas today. In the end Social Darwinism is nothing much more than a replacement excuse for inequality made necessary by the eclipse of the older ‘Divine Right of Kings’ angle by the advent of reason.

Clearly the reign of reason is not unfamiliar with the insurrections of the useful lie disguised as reason’s ally. Let's look to unleash anarchy and end the game once and for all for liberty!

When Thinking Becomes Like Voting

Elites (In this Case Liberals) Narrow Your Thinking – If Only You Would Let Them

Turn Left.com (“The Home of Liberalism on the Web”) lets readers make up their own customized conspiracy theory - as long as you think within the framework they have thoughtfully and lovingly provided! It reminds one of the freedom we are given to choose a Democrat or a Republican, but not before the candidate has been cleared by the Liberal-Conservative business classes.

At this page, readers can select pre-set elements from pull-downs in order to fill out a necessarily brief customized “Conspiracy Theory” It’s rigged, of course. But I bet they didn’t count on mine!

Here it is; the bracketed sections are those where Turn Left want you to select from their ridiculous presets. Needless to say, none of my fill-ins existed on their pull-downs:

In order to understand [that the world is controlled by elite business interests] you need to realize that everything is controlled by a [an elite interested in furthering a state corporatist mindset] made up of [conservatives] with help from [liberals].

The conspiracy first started [following the rise of merchants] in [the Middle Ages]. They have been responsible for many events throughout history, including [the destruction of socialist and anarchistic moves towards freedom].

Today, members of the conspiracy are everywhere. They can be identified by [the things they say and do].

They want to [indoctrinate] all [persons everywhere] and imprison resisters in [a system of global corporate capitalism] using [the traditional methods of indoctrination backed by force if necessary].

In order to prepare for this, we all must [see through their plans and the collaboration of the liberals with the conservatives]. Since the media is controlled by [corporations], we should get our information from [independent media and alternative sources in addition to more mainstream sources].

Has Hitchens Defected With One Foot?

Hitchens it seems has defected with one foot. His right foot in the Neocon’s war camp, he keeps his left in the “progressive” camp. But where is his center of gravity (pretty low when he’s passed out drunk, I imagine)? He leans to the right so very slowly. The time it takes him to become a full-fledged neoconservative will likely be measured in glacial epochs. But as sure as the glacier will go to the sea or melt, so too will Hitchens become a neoconservative. The thing that may speed the melt, slide whatever you wanna call it (or halt it, yeah right), will be when this Iraq war ends. He will likely spend years defending it, sputtering out fewer and fewer words as time passes. Will Hitchens, with the basic common bond with his new Neocon friends gone, then move towards them ideologically in other ways? But there is salvation for Chris in the perfidy of our leaders. Hitchens is, of course, a fan of the War on Terror (of which you know the Iraq war is a small part, right?), and since Donald Rumsfeld has promised it may go on for decades, Hitchens may never have to face the dilemma of resolving his Neoconservative Progressivism.

Watching the Watchers

A Survey of the Responses to 'Occam's Razor and 9-11 Conspiracy Theories'

On November 20, 2005, I posted on my blog ‘Occam’s Razor and 9-11 Conspiracy Theories: Are You Sure Laughing at Conspiracy Theories Makes You Smart?’ A link to this post was posted by Michael Rivero on his popular website What Really Happened? as well as at CalgaryMuslims.com and Mack White's interesting site. Well, let’s just say it produced for Twain’s Ghost the most readership it has ever had. Naturally, I was curious what people were thinking about my post. I got some comments on my blog. However, I knew there was likely more. I went looking for it. What I found was not really surprising. In those places where links to the post allowed for immediate commentary, there was ridicule; posters ironically, it could seem, falling victim to the seduction of the booby-prize of looking smart by laughing at conspiracy theories, the very thing I warned about!

Over at the bulletin board for Air America’s Randi Rhodes Show, a link to ‘Occam’s Razor and 9-11 Conspiracy Theories’, including a lengthy extract, was posted by Reprehensor. The first response was from Realist (gotta take that seriously, right?). Realist quoted the section where I stated

“Jones makes a plain, clear and convincing case that, from a physical point of view, the controlled-demolition-caused collapse theory easily trounces the conventional fire/damage-caused collapse theory.”

Realist answered:

“No, he doesn’t. He repeats the conspiracy theory mantra without producing anything in the form of proof to support his contentions.

But if one actually reads Jones’ paper (yes, this is necessary) one will notice right away that he does exactly the opposite of what Realist claims. He does not “repeat the conspiracy theory mantra”, whatever that is, and he does offer “proof to support his contentions.”

Realist goes on:

“[Jones] ignores basic principles of engineering while misapplying the second law of thermodynamics to an open system.”

Realist does not elaborate on which “basic principles of engineering” Jones ignores. Nor does he provide an explanation of how or evidence for the idea that Jones misapplied “the second law of thermodynamics to an open system.” This brief explanation seems to suggest exactly the opposite of what Realist suggests.  My guess is, Realist doesn’t know what he’s talking about. If he does, he expects everyone to take his word for it, sans explanation and evidence – just the sort behavior we are meant to expect, as the stereotype reads, from the defenders of conspiracy theories. But then again, Realist is defending a conspiracy theory, if a poor one badly.

In fact, the only thing Realist does is repeat the ‘Snicker at all theories except the Official, Government-Sanctioned Conspiracy Theory’ mantra, failing to do himself or herself what he expects and is delivered from Jones.

One PalePhoenix (such inventive names) provided another example. PP writes:

“Conspiracies are like jigsaw puzzles. They keep the mind somewhat engaged, they're fun to do with friends, but just when you think you've got all the pieces and you can almost see the whole picture, you realize some are still missing and it isn't what they promised on the box cover.”

Funny? Yes. Intelligent and serious? No.

Pale Phoenix’s conception of a (conspiracy) theory as a neat little box that delivers all of the answers to you pre-packaged suggests exactly the kind of thinking (or, lack of it) that makes a people susceptible to manipulation (and likely, Pale Phoenix is unaware that he is merely repeating the garbage he has been conditioned to repeat).

Later, in another post, after SuzCC resignedly says “I guess I’ll have to go to the source”, Pale Phoenix offers this:

“Always a good idea. As is formulating your own opinion. And it's usually MY big hint of the day to steer clear of any "alternative viewpoints" thrown in my face, repeatedly, by a stranger, and as if I'm an idiot who can't think for himself.

When it comes down to having a semi-reasonable conversation with someone I deem to be besotted by a perspective radically different from my own, I'm generally good about stipulating to any of their terms, since doing so harms my beliefs none whatsoever.

‘So, you say the World Trade Center was felled by a troop of Flying Monkeys sent by the Wicked Witch of the Mideast? Very well. Now, how does knowing this improve your life and what are you going to do about it, other than foist it on anyone who's bored enough to listen?’ ”

It is ironic that Pale Phoenix suggests “formulating [one’s] own opinion”. It seems he has not so much formulated one, as he is regurgitating a second-hand opinion he thinks makes him look smart.

Notice how he says that he steers clear of “alternative viewpoints"? He would,  since of course those are the sort that you have to think about and about which you must be careful in “formulat[ing] your own opinion," whereas conventional viewpoints come, as he expects, pre-packaged with everything spelled out for him, whatever their quality. He also chooses to emphasize his steering clear of “alternative viewpoints” that are “thrown in [his] face, repeatedly, by a stranger, as if an idiot who can’t think for himself.” So, he has no responsibility for reading someone’s post himself, it has simply been “thrown in [his] face.” And why would it matter if it were a stranger? If Pale Phoenix is not an “idiot who can’t think for himself”, he is choosing a rather ironic way to demonstrate it.

If one has a  “perspective radically different from” Pale Phoenix’s, one is “besotted” by the opinion – that is, drunk with it. But as Pale Phoenix walks the chalk line of “formulating” his own opinion, he clearly stumbles. And like most drunks, he is hard to reason with! In fact one can almost hear Pale Phoenix slur his speach when he offers the mysterious statement contained in paragraph two of his comments quoted above.

His last paragraph exhibits rather comically (more so than he intends) the sort of mistaken association I wrote about in my original piece. I wrote that – and Reprehensor included this part:

“Rarely is much thought given to distinguish one theory from another or to evaluate any of them on their merits. For instance, Bill Clinton being a secret Communist who consorts with bisexual dwarves is put in the same “Conspiracy Theory” category as is questions about 9-11.”

Pale Phoenix offers a non-existent, unrelated, but obviously ridiculous 9-11 theory starring Flying Monkeys and the Wicked Witch in order to smear anything other than the Official Conspiracy Theory Starring Osama Bin Laden and the 19 Mysterious Hijackers.

He finishes by implying that the only people that consider conspiracy theories are those that are “bored enough to listen.” Apparently, and ironically, this is something he would likely not assume about the countless number of people, including himself, who have listened intently, and apparently uncritically, as the Bush Administration spouts its countless conspiracy theories about 9-11, Saddam Hussein, the War on Terror, etc., etc., ad infinitum.

Over at The Irish Forum at Delphiforums, we find another group of chuckling readers (if they bothere to read). Let’s start with patGal77, a Pisces from sunny California employed in the software industry. Quoting from the intentionally amusing masthead of my blog, she writes:

“ --I hopes to channel it as frequently as possible. [From my masthead]

Well, I guess that would make your "theori" smart. Maybe you and ole BerrySteph should get together for a cup of tea.”

Failing to offer any evidence that she even bothered to read my post or the Jones’ paper, she chooses to take seriously a joke, on my part, that with my blog I hope to channel the spirit of Mark Twain, that is, I hope to think for myself and write about it in a way that is entertaining as well as informative. PatGal77 chooses to question the intelligence of my post, Jones’ paper, and apparently the entire idea of “alternative viewpoints” based on what she thinks, or expects me to mean by a joke. She takes a joke seriously and jokes about the serious.

PatGal77, while potentially bright (she’s in software!), does not shine so much here. But, at The Irish Forum, she is a rather typical of the chucklers.

BerrySteph, quotes the subtitle of my piece...

“‘Are You Sure Laughing at Conspiracy Theories Makes You Smart?’”

...and offers this bit of unanswerable wisdom:

“No. But it stops you looking really dumb!”

Aside from the fact that this demonstrates BarrySteph is very ordinary in that he likely did not read either my post or Jones’ paper before responding, it also suggests that, like Realist, he avoids “alternative viewpoints” and thinks holding conventional views makes him look smart. Here’s your booby-prize, BarrySteph!

Alone among the Irish Forum-ists, obrien88ny offers more than a one-liner, though it's a waste of typing. Obrien88ny is a 58 year old retiree from Pennsylvania. Obrien88ny concurs with Napoleon that “God is on the side with a large Cannon”, a misquote of a mistaken citation. Napoleon likely never said such a thing. However, according to the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (1992, p. 165), Comte de Bussy-Rabutin, a French soldier and poet of the 17th century, did say, "As you know, God is usually on the side of the big squadrons against the small."  The idea being, if you are powerful enough to destroy your enemies, clearly Providence (caring about nothing else) sides with you, explaining the efficacy of firepower supernaturally (a violation therefore of Occam's Razor!!). Obrien88ny is a self-described “Irish-American nationalist” (I warned you about nationalists!) who likes the film ‘Birth of a Nation’, a racist propaganda piece about early America. He offers the following:

“Remember when the Jews were out to cut Kurt Waldheim? I heard this Jewish guy on HBO tell the following story about a massacre by Kurt Waldheim:

1) 35 miles from where Waldheim was stationed 20 Jews were killed by the SS.

2) Waldheim was G-2 in the area.

3) We would have known or even planned the killings because of his position in the Wermacht table of organization.

MY OBJECTIONS:

1) Waldheim was an Austrian and not a Nazi party member. Would the Gestapo have let him in on this assasination?

2) Maybe the CO didn't like Waldheim and had him cleaning out the stables.

3) 35 miles is a long way from HQ in a combat situation.

MY CONCLUSION:

They were forcing Waldheim into the situation. They were inventing a conspiracy to have evidence to remove Waldheim from the UN.”

WTF?!

What is one is to make of this? I am open to suggestions. It seems Obrien88ny is offering one of his own theories, completely unrelated and of a very different quality, as some kind of...answer? (I'm not at all sure, though, that he is serious.) Is the reader supposed to lump the defense of Kurt Waldheim’s Nazi past with a rational consideration of 9-11 counter-theories? Apparently that is the point. The flaky and non-factual nature of Obrien88ny’s post about Kurt Waldheim is easy to demonstrate and I will do so for anyone that cares.

If Realist, Pale Phoenix, patGal77, BerrySteph and obrien88ny are examples of the popular opposition to alternative viewpoints (and I quoted another in my original piece), those considering them or holding them haven’t got much to worry about. The only dark spot, and it is rather large, is the fact that Realist, et al., echo (if weakly) the sort of lazy, sorry thinking that dominates the mainstream media regarding these and other important matters.

************

To attack the chucklers, pre-emptively, as it were, by anticipating a possible objection, I would acknowledge that Jones’ holds some views that might be determined to be “wacky”. For instance, Jones is apparently a practicing Mormon. He apparently believes that Jesus Christ visited the Americas, as supposedly evidenced by Mayan artwork, poetry and sculpture. The reason I readily offer apparent ammunition to his mockers is that I just don't that it matters, it's not relevant – not to the issue at hand, anyway. The issue at hand is to evaluate the quality of Jones’ argument about the physics of the collapse of the WTC buildings. I offer that this will be used against him, particularly by that portion of the pro-Official Conspiracy Theory crowd that is atheist or anti-religion, or even those that are conventionally Christian, etc. They will do this because it reinforces their mistaken beliefs about the government as well as their mistaken beliefs about those who offer theories counter to the officially-sanctioned theories.

But again, this shows, as do the quotes by Conspiracy Theory mockers above, that the quality of the popular opposition to 9-11 counter-theories is rather low. And the popular opposition to 9-11 counter-theories is a reflection of elite conditioning. Garbage in/Garbage out.

Kennedy Assassinated: 42 Years Ago Today

Kennedy Assassination Waters Pretty Muddy ~ Lisa Pease May Clear Some of That Up

Personally, being a fairly libertarian person (more in the anarchic, not the laissez-faire capitalist sense), I am not a fan of Kennedy. No, not so much. Not any president. Not any government. He did have a gorgeous wife and a stunning mistress (you know, Ms. Monroe?). And I think Boston accents sound cool. But no, I don't have a picture of Kennedy on the wall and I don't think that Liberal hope was killed that day too, along with John. I don't pine for Camelot.

I do think there is something seriously wrong with the official story of the Kennedy assassination. I think it is very strange, some sort of weird American luck, that all of our assassinations and high-profile deaths and deaths are the work of lone-nuts and mere happenstance. How come we're so lucky? (Remember Senator Paul Wellstone of Minnesota? A pain in the ass to the Bushies, killed in a plane crash in October 2002.  Remember Senator Mel Carnahan of Missouri? A pain in the ass to the Bushies, killed in a plane crash 2 years earlier. Remember John Kennedy Jr?? Oh, never mind...)

As with 9-11 and many other events in American history, there is with the Kennedy assassination all of the usual: Conventional theories and explanations that, in many ways, just don't stand up to scrutiny, as well as the kind of counter-theories that don't hold water very well either, or are just completely wacky. The Kennedy assassination as a cultural category is so complex and muddied at this point it is hard to say if it will ever be resolved satisfactorily, or what mix of conventional and unconventional elements it will contain. But if the matter approaches resolution, Lisa Pease's work will likely be a big part of discovering the answer. I suggest reading her piece, The Enduring JFK Mystery, over at Consortium News. (Note: Remember Iran-Contra? Consortium News was started by Robert Parry, the journalist that broke many of the  stories about that scandal in the U.S. in the 1980s.)

Occam’s Razor and 9-11 Conspiracy Theories

Are You Sure Laughing at Conspiracy Theories Makes You Smart?

One of the favoritest pastimes of nationalist ass-kissers , deaf, dumb and blind flag-wavers and those who just want a shortcut to looking smart (and this) is to laugh about (most) Conspiracy Theories, a category of weirdness far worse, it is felt,  than say ‘liberal’, for instance. As for booby prizes, they go to those, right, left and center, who chuckle the loudest and most-snearingly about “Conspiracy Theories”, while the raspberries are reserved for those who consider them to one extent of another, no matter how carefully. It’s a sure sign of intellectual pretension to ridicule “conspiracy theories.” Rarely is much thought given to distinguish one theory from another or to evaluate any of them on their merits. For instance, Bill Clinton being a secret Communist who consorts with bisexual dwarves is put in the same “Conspiracy Theory” category as is questions about 9-11. A relevant example is the post of a ‘Svenis’ person at this site. He or she mixes crazy and more plausible theories about 9-11, smearing and dismissing the latter in the process. The problem, in part, is that one of the persons he argues with, one ‘Bushwhacker’, doesn’t help when he mixes stuff himself without apparently evaluating some of them.

There are always really wacky or just plain factually challenged theories , and they never help either (which raises potential questions about the origins of those ideas). The only thing that matters, though, to the Conspiracy-mockers is the question: Does the Conspiracy Theory reflect badly on their beloved America (the concept, not the place or the people)? And this is crucial. If so, it is rejected out of hand as mere “anti-Americanism.” If the Conspiracy Theory, on the other hand, reflects well on their beloved America (the concept, not the place or the people), it gets the reverse treatment: blind and complete acceptance. Republicans and others, without seeing the irony, call the science behind the idea of global warming “junk science.” Something similar happens with “conspiracy theories”. Case in point is the competing theories about 9-11. The Official Conspiracy Theory starring Osama Bin Laden and 19 mysterious hijackers is simply unquestionable no matter how many questions and contradictions remain, no matter how “junk science” it is. Conversely, any theory, and there are many, of various quality, that questions the Official Conspiracy Theory starring Osama Bin Laden and 19 mysterious hijackers is immediately and completely laughable, by default – and this is considered obvious, not challengeable, putting the entire matter in the realm of faith, not reason.

The more sophisticated of the Conspiracy Theory mockers who fancy themselves debunkers deploy the logical principle known as Occam’s Razor, or often merely appear to. Occam’s Razor is a logical principle “attributed to the mediaeval philosopher William of Occam (or Ockham)” which “states that one should not make more assumptions than the minimum needed.” Of course, it happens that Occam’s Razor is often thrown around carelessly and thoughtlessly, a prop for political theater posing as serious, open-minded discussion, much like Republicans scream “junk science” when defending junk science. Sometimes the Razor-wielder doesn’t realize how dripping with irony it is to ridicule a Conspiracy Theory via Occam’s Razor while failing to recognize how deep it might cut into their own preferred, politically-correct, pro-America theories.

The best recent example I can think of that deploys the logical principle of Occam’s Razor in such a way as to discredit conventional theories in favor of a “conspiracy theory” is BYU physics Professor Steven E. Jones’ paper ‘Why Indeed Did the WTC Buildings Collapse’. In this paper, which I invite everyone to read, Jones makes a plain, clear and convincing case that, from a physical point of view, the controlled-demolition-caused collapse theory easily trounces the conventional fire/damage-caused collapse theory. That is, the former accounts for the facts far better than the latter while making fewer assumptions, in keeping with Occam’s logical principle. But do you think this will cause the thoughtless Bin Laden-haters, Bush-lovers and people who think they’re smart ‘cos they read Christopher Hitchens (or at least his headlines) to even think twice? It should, but in too many cases I think it won’t. The funny thing is, Jones’ paper will likely be cited, without even being read or seriously considered, as an example of crazy conspiracy theories.

A lesson is that, yes, not every conspiracy theory stands up to scrutiny – an example being the what Michael Rivero over at What Really Happened ( www.whatreallyhappened.com ), calls the Pod People (cited above). Not all conspiracy theories fare well in a confrontation with Occam’s Razor. And we shouldn’t latch onto them if they don’t. But don’t take anyone’s word for it. Scrutinize the scrutiny. Evaluate the case made by those who laugh at conspiracy theories, and look at what they promote in their place. And we shouldn’t adopt a belief because it does not contradict what we already know or wish to believe, either. But the relevant lesson for those knee-jerk Conspiracy Theory-mockers is that their own beliefs and counter-theories often do not fare well under such scrutiny either and that some of the theories they choose to mock, because its politically-correct and socially-acceptable to do so, fare much better under serious scrutiny than they could bear to realize. For instance, the more one looks, the more one realizes that the Official Conspiracy Theory starring Osama Bin Laden stands up to scrutiny about as well as the Pod People’s theories and the notion that Clinton was secretly a Communist dwarf-humper.

The Trial of Christopher Hitchens

Hitchens Lies About Bush Lies and Smears Antiwar Movement – Again

Hitchens, drunk like the drunk that only comes from snuggling with Power, and from what else who knows, defends Bush’s Big Lies and his prodigal lie-peddler Ahmad Chalabi. Having gone over to the Dark (i.e., Kissenger, Perle, Neocon, et al.) Side on the Iraq war matter, it is no surprise I suppose that he is still defending Bush’s case for war - he’s all in now; what would the Empire think of him if he re-defected, and would the Rebels take him back? It is also no surprise that he comes to the defense of Neocon/Pentagon darling, convicted bank fraudster, double (triple?)-agent Ahmad Chalabi and his crowd of useful Iraqi defectors, who are once again in the graces of the Terror Agents at the White House, Hitchens new friends.

I say useful defectors because those defectors who weren’t coached by front organizations for U.S. intelligence agencies and offered evidence that Iraq had in fact disarmed were roundly ignored (and Hitchens certainly ignores them). Such defectors were useless to Bush’s agenda of fixing the intelligence around the policy, as the Downing Street memo put it. The Most Useless Defector, of course, was Saddam Hussein’s relative Hussein Kamal, the high-ranking Iraqi military official who defected in 1995 and told the story of how Iraq had in fact disarmed  [.pdf] (and the evidence now makes quite clear this was the case). Of course this was ignored by the U.S., which even under Clinton was more interested in the usefulness of the fake Iraqi threat than the facts – no matter how many Iraqi children had to die, as Clintonoid Secretary of State Madeleine Albright felt. Kamal was so ignored that he made the mistake of returning to Iraq where Saddam Hussein’s government promptly executed him for telling this story - likely because Hussein’s government was trying to disarm while still appearing strong and macho to his subjects and friends. Or just because that’s how tyrants react to insubordination. In any event, ignoring Kamal meant the U.S. continued killing Iraqis, eventually to the tune of hundreds of thousands (and continuing).

Hitchens laughs at the Democrats’ claim the country was fooled by the little old Chalabi puppet, and doesn’t mention the puppeteers in the U.S. government and private propaganda ministries like the Rendon Group

Hitchens’ main attack point is the idea that the small, impoverished exile group Iraqi National Congress (then-funded by the Pentagon) and headed up by Neoconman Ahmad Chalabi couldn’t possibly have fooled the huge, lavishly financed U.S. intelligence community. About that, he would be right. Unless... Yes, it is highly unlikely any intelligence agencies, much less the huge, lavishly financed U.S. intelligence agencies, would have been fooled by such a small, impoverished independent deception operation. But that is the point. It wasn’t an independent deception operation. It was dependent, financially, logistically, and politically, first on the CIA, and then after the failed 1996 coup in Iraq, on the Pentagon and tied to an Administration bent on war! It is also very important to note that the Iraqi National Congress was as much a creation of a U.S. government deception campaign as anything. It was in fact more or less created by the Rendon Group, a sort of privatized Ministry of Propaganda, employed by the government for years to sell war. While the CIA and the Pentagon was paying the INC $320,000 a month for years on end, a paltry sum to the nouveau riche Hitchens, I guess, it is very important to note the organization’s activities were also being coordinated by the Rendon Group, as reported by James Bamford in the latest edition of Rolling Stone magazine. The intelligence community, first the CIA and then the Pentagon, were paying Chalabi and the INC to lie to them! This sounds crazy. Why would someone pay someone to lie to him or her? The idea is to create an echo chamber, a sort of buzz, an environment of belief. Also, it should be remembered that one of the main lies peddled by the Chalabi crowd, and presented by Colin Powell during his February 5, 2003 before the U.N., was the story by the Most Useful of the Useful Defectors, brother of a Chalabi lieutenant nicknamed “Curveball,” about mobile chemical weapons labs. Well, the story was completely bogus and not a shred of evidence has ever been found to substantiate that such mobile labs ever existed. That explains why Colin Powell had only “artists renderings” for his little show-and-tell program before the U.N. There were other lies, dutifully paraded before the public by the likes of New York Times, um, “journalist”, Judith Miller. God knows who she was really working for! (It should be noted that Chalabi is back!!)

Hitchens’ secondary point seems to be to narrow the case for believing Bush lied to this, the supposed deceptions of this small, impoverished, if Pentagon-sponsored, group. He wants to downplay Chalabi and the INC and disguise the U.S. government hand behind it, and then laugh because, hey, “Are you sure you want to keep saying we were fooled by Ahmad Chalabi and the INC?” In addition to these deceptions and manipulations though, Hitchens compounds it by leaving out the rest of the story. For, as he well knows, there are plenty of other reasons to believe his buddies in the Bush Administration were engaged in a campaign of deception in order to start a war. From the dodgy dossier  peddled by the Brits (the lackiest of the U.S. lackeys in Europe), to the Downing Street memo (revealing Brit knowledge the U.S. was lying up a war), to Niger yellowcake fraud (the uncovering of which led to the outing of a CIA agents identity to punish the uncoverer, her husband). The last of course was the pulp (fiction) of the infamous “16 words” included in Bush’s 2003 State of the Union speech even after being repeatedly told the information was flaky. The reasons for believing Bush and Co. lied add up daily. Hitchens takes them on, badly, one by one, acting as if they individually are all that have been revealed and therefore paltry evidence for the supposed crime.

Hitchens is at his most poetic when he is smearing those who object to the kind of U.S. government criminality he once objected to himself

Christopher Hitchens’ latest attack on the increasingly popular and (incidentally) long-correct (no WMDs, just like many of us said) anti-Iraq war movement entails, unsurprisingly, as his new GOP alignment would require, attacking the once-pro-war liberal Democrats who have now turned against the war, largely, I’d bet, only because of its increasing unpopularity. He chides Democrats who voted for the 1998 Iraq Liberation Act (so-called) and the 2002 resolution authorizing Bush to do...something.

But Hitchens is careful and clever enough not to just belittle the antiwar movement based on one aspect (as he perceives it). Even though he has slandered the antiwar movement, equating it solely with the Stalinists and LaRouchies just like his new rightwing kindred always have, he deploys a subtler technique now. Rather than merely ridiculing the antiwar movements’ wackier elements (as he perceives them), he instead brackets it with, on the one end, the once-pro-war Democrats who have just now come to object to a policy pattern they should have opposed even before 1998 and , on the other, the (wrongly-abused) 9-11 skeptics and the sort of protesters he chooses to call “moth-eaten and shabby”. Democrats who voted for authorization for war in 1998 and 2002 and now oppose the war are just stupid, Hitchens implies, and so therefore is the entire anti-war movement, even those parts of it that never supported U.S. bellicosity against Iraq!

Equating Shifting War-Excuses with Continuing Revelations of Bush War-Related Scandals

Apparently still smarting over the fact that no WMDs were ever found in Iraq, an illusion Hitchens latched to as he defected towards the Powerful, he clings to the few decrepit scraps of former and possible weapons systems in Iraq like a man in a desert scooping up sand believing it to be the water he so desperately seeks. But, to continue the metaphor, if facts are water to this thirsty man, he’s insisting on looking precisely where it isn’t. At least he’s smart enough not to peddle Bush’s fraud about the Iraq-Niger yellowcake deal! Though he has tried to muddy the waters on this issue by ignoring the relevant fraud and putting the spotlight on the suspected illegal trade of yellowcake out of Niger. He’s even had the nerve to say the Niger forgeries are irrelevant because they are probably replacements for actual documents (though he has no idea where such documents are and none of them have ever been made public anywhere – but somehow they must exist!) But even after all of these questions have been answered (the question of Iraqi WMD has been answered, in the negative) we are still faced with the fact that it is an illusion that Saddam’s Iraq was unique in seeking such weapons and that post-Saddam Iraq, even if democratized, will not also seek such weapons. Israel is sort of a democracy and it is bristling with Weapons of Mass Destruction. The irony of a democratized Iraq, if it happens to become so to  any meaningful extent, is that the tyrannies on its borders (many of them U.S. allies, including Kuwait!) may look a lot like threats! To disguise this real possibility, the warbloggers simply say Iraq will never have Saddam Hussein weapons of mass destruction! As Mark Noonan (any relation to Peggy?) over at Blogs for Bush put it last year: “In the end it doesn't matter if Saddam was ten days from building a nuke or ten years - by liberating Iraq from Saddam, we have forever ended the possibility that Saddam would acquire nuclear weapons, and other WMD.”  Yeah, we’ve ended forever the possibility that Saddam (I love when they personify an entire country) will have “nuclear weapons, and other WMD”! But not the possibility that present Iraqi prime minister Al-Jafari or Ahmad Chalabi or some Shi’ite of Sunni theocrat will have them! We better overthrow our puppet government in Iraq immediately!

But I digress...

Hitchens throws back the anti-war movements objection to the shifting and disposable pro-war rationales of Bush and his warblogger sheep, claiming the anti-war movement’s focus on the manipulative Iraqi defectors and their Manipulator-In-Chief, Ahmad Chalabi is somehow a new or singular rationale for believing Bush lied. In this Hitchens confuses the many things that point to manipulation on the part of the Bush crowd with the many things the Bushies have tried to forward as an excuse for their war as their previous excuses come unraveled. Multiple scandalous facts discovered about something after the fact are not of the same low quality as multiple excuses for the same thing invented after the fact. It’s like saying a battered woman who starts revealing numerous abuses on her ex’s part is the same as the ex offering more and more reasons for his abuses.

Hitchens Used to Get It

Those who have brought so much suffering upon Iraqis (as well as those in their armchairs, like Hitchens, who have so nonchalantly supported visiting so much suffering on Iraqis) now toss aside the used-up lies. The lies they defended so vociferously are now to be obliviously set aside to make room for new deceptions even as the pro-warriors call the discovery of these lies “politics”. The same people that lied us into war now say simply the world is better off without Saddam Hussein, whatever the facts. This is a Globocop version of the right-wing view that even if a criminal is innocent of the crime he has been accused of, rotting in prison is okay because he probably did something, sometime. But its even worse than that because Saddam, even if he is put to death by the Kangaroo court organized by the U.S. puppet government in Bagdad, will never suffer from U.S.-instigated punishment as much as the Iraqi people have and are. After all, what those lies mean, in addition to an unjust war and occupation, is that years of sanctions and bombings were unjustified too and that tens upon hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives were thrown away for nothing - deaths that were often preceded by tremendous suffering. What the war defenders, therefore, cannot see and would not say even if they could see it, is that it is a sad if unspeakable fact that Iraq and countless other parts of the would also be better off without a United States government (creator of the Saddam Frankenstein) with such a global reach. The evidence is out there. But the lies that are supporting this war have been deployed before to pretty-up other U.S. crimes and blind much of the U.S. public to such evidence. Saddam’s substantial criminality pales in comparison.

At least now that the Iraq war is so very unpopular, and daily more so, Hitchens can have the booby-prize of feeling like the voice in the wilderness again, a position Hitchens once could more reasonably have claimed – and something the his pro-war kindred spirit, war criminal Kissinger likely has long felt.

*******

Liberal Defense of the Conventional 'Al-Qaeda did it' Conspiracy Theories about 9/11 and why the War on Terror is the devil-spawn of the Cold War

In an exchange in The Nation magazine with Marc Cooper (‘Gore Vidal, Octocontrarian’, November 7, 2005), Gore Vidal is asked...

Q: You are not possibly suggesting that the Bush Administration allowed [9/11] to go ahead?

A: No. I'm not saying anything even close to it. If there had been some sort of wicked collusion between elements of our government and the 9/11 team from Saudi Arabia, in a country like ours, by now, at least two of them would have been on television talking to Barbara Walters. That's what kind of country we have. We can't keep secrets. No, it's unthinkable. Whatever was behind 9/11 was well worked out. And there isn't a brain in this Administration that could have worked out something like 9/11. Either to prevent it or to do it.

We are meant to believe that our own government, the richest, most powerful and sophisticated government in the world, is incapable of pulling off a huge, sophisticated terrorist operation (in this case false-flag), but a caveful of stateless Arabs somehow are capable of such a thing?

We can’t contemplate the Bush Administration might have allowed 9-11 to happen – even though it has turned out to be immensely convenient for U.S. elite interests, from control of public attitudes, to military spending, to authoritarian measures at home and military aggression abroad. It’s just a coincidence.

Even beyonder the pale is the further notion that the U.S. government not only allowed 9-11 to proceed, but actively sought to foster such an attack or even to perpetrate it itself.

Crazy? Don’t take the word of chuckling Cooper or the otherwise wise Vidal. It is the job of liberals at this time to frame the “War on Terror” as real even as they dispute its management. The rest of us should look to the possibility that the War on Terror is as much a fraud and an ideological construct to support unspeakable agendas as was the Cold War. In his 1991 book, Deterring Democracy, Noam Chomsky noticed that the liars and crooks who run our system faced a problem as the Cold War waned:

“...the Cold War has served important functions for state managers. When a government stimulus was needed for a faltering economy or to foster new and costly technologies, state managers could conjure up Russian hordes on the march to induce the public to expand the subsidy to advanced industry via the Pentagon. Forceful intervention and subversion to bar independent nationalism in the Third World could be justified in the same terms, and there were ancillary benefits in maintaining US influence over its allies. Quite generally, the Evil Empire has been invoked when needed for domestic economic management and for controlling the world system. A replacement will not be easy to find.”

Well, folks, I think it is clear the replacement has been found. It is the War on Terror. But is the advent of this godsend (to the crooks who run our system) too convenient? Are we that unlucky? Or is there more to it? (Unfortunately, Chomsky is likely among the leftists who buy into the conventional Al-Qaeda conspiracy theory.)

Look for yourself at the evidence – which at the very least casts serious doubts on the conventional conspiracy theory starring Bin Laden and now the one-legged doppelganger known as Al-Zarqawi. Read things like David Ray Griffin’s The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions About 9-11 and the Bush Administration. There are other sources of information, but Griffin does a good job presenting and analyzing the best evidence against the conventional Al-Qaeda conspiracy theory and in favor of  -- something else.

Ken Mehlman, Satan’s Little Helper, and the Deepness of Our Doo-Doo

Ken Mehlman, Republican attack poodle (Republican National Committee chairman and apparent Israel-Firster) has shown his character once again. Defending Bush’s lies, Mehlman ridiculed Democrats who want an investigation into pre-war intelligence regarding Iraqi WMD programs. He said Democrats who once worried that Iraq was amassing WMD now want an investigation of the pre-war intelligence. “Maybe this investigation will reveal that they were brainwashed,” he said. In effect, he’s saying, “Yeah, we lied, but you believed us.” And yes there is a lesson in there. For the American public, that is, not Democratic politicians. No one should have believed the U.S. government’s stories about Iraq. Not in 1983, not in 1990, not in 1998, and not 2002 and not even in 2005. Not ever. Yeah, the Democrats, like the Clintons, who pushed lies about Iraq as well, had the resources to know better. I knew the stories about Iraqi WMDs and the “imminent threat” hoohah were bullshit. (See this, especially the part where McGovern says: "It is said that truth is the first casualty of war.  Sadly, in the case of Iraq, even before the war, truth took a back seat to a felt need to snuggle up to power—to stay in good standing with a president and his advisers, all well known to be hell-bent on war on Iraq.") What do I got? Do I have access to secret information? No. (Well, there are media sources, magazines, writers and commentators that are more reliable on such matters. Hint: none of them are on TV – except maybe Jon Stewart!) What I got is an understanding that the U.S. government, and its corporate backers, nearly always lie about the enemies they want us all to hate. And even if they don’t lie about that, they lie about their own actions as well as their intent and agenda in a given circumstance. The Democrats who backed the Iraq war initially should have known better. In this case, the satanic Mehlman tells a certain truth, even as smoke issues from around his forked-tongue. Except, the Democrats weren’t so much brainwashed as they chose to go along with the propaganda (which, as I said, was demonstrably false even then). The ones who were brainwashed were the American people, again. But it doesn’t have to be that way. The lesson is to give up once and for all the notion that elites of any stripe can be trusted...period. Government is always a wicked combination of force and fraud. Our corporate capitalist one is no different. In fact, our experiment in democracy has been thoroughly undermined by corporate capitalism in so many ways that less capitalistic democracies have not. One, by rendering our entire lives through the authoritarianism of the corporation, undermining even the idea of democracy. (See this.) You’ve heard it all before, “If only the government was run like a business.” Well, if the government were run like a business it would be a complete tyranny rather than a near-tyranny. Capitalism combined with blind patriotism work hand in hand to destroy in our minds our very grasp of the meaning of liberty while at the same time trumpeting it as our unique gift to the world! This is the sort of depth we need to go to in order to understand the mess we are in. It will do no good to look to Democrats and the like or “the system” more generally – even if Ken Mehlman is Satan’s little helper!

Renowned War Criminal Henry Kissinger Stumps for Iraq War

Am I the only one who wonders why the fuck Henry Kissinger is anywhere speaking for the United States? But there he is, war criminal from way back, out stumping for the Iraq war; telling the Europeans that it would be foolish to vacate Iraq.

That he would support the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq is no surprise. In a sane world, Kissinger would have been dragged before an international criminal court a long time ago. The list of his crimes is not short, nor are the crimes petty. The starting point of course is the Indochina war, called the Vietnam War, but comprising much more than that much-damaged country.

Is Kissinger's worst crime his leading role in that nightmare? A nightmare that was begun in Vietnam but spread to Cambodia and Laos. Very likely that will remain Kissinger's greatest crime, if only for his advanced age. But let's not forget his crimes throughout the remainder of the Nixon era. There was his leading role in the terrorism against Chile that ended in a military coup, all pushed by the United States. Before the coup, the U.S., with Kissinger again in a leading role, provided guns to hired murderers to assassinate General René Schneider, a Chilean military leader opposed to the plans of the U.S. and its rightwing collaborators in Chile.

One irony here is that one of the best chroniclers of Kissinger's crimes, Christopher Hitchens (see this too), lost his fucking mind and is now a huge supporter of the Iraq war! Hitchens even wrote a book called 'The Trial of Henry Kissinger'! So either Hitchens now adores the likes of Kissinger or there is a serious shortcircuit in his brain. Kissinger the war criminal and Hitchens the former sane person, now sit together as complicitous supporters of the present crime.

As for the U.S. staying in Iraq "because it's a mess", is the most absurdly criminal logic. You cannot grant the criminal the right to demand to control the crime scene until it is cleaned up to his satisfaction. Iraq is a crime scene. The U.S. stands guilty of the crime of military aggression - a crime for which we hanged Nazis. The criminals, like Bush et al. and Kissinger who want to remain in Iraq, are merely wanting to shape the outcome of their crime. Nothing more. They do not pity the Iraqi people. They have visited far too much suffering on them to pass off that bullshit as apple pie.